Participant Stories

I’ve been an information technology support specialist in Detroit for half a year now, and I consider myself lucky because I love my job helping other people solve problems. But it wasn’t easy getting here.

Venitra loves her job as a picker at a warehouse in Oklahoma City, OK. She gets excellent benefits and uses the forklift skills she trained for. However, there was a long period when she was fearful about finding a good position. She was incarcerated during the pandemic and was unsure what work she would be able to do after her release, especially because before being in prison, she and her husband had only worked fast-food jobs.

Shannon has made a career turning struggling businesses into winning operations. But his biggest success has been his ability to turn his own life around in a way that positively influences many.

Konrad was born and raised in the rough streets of Detroit, Michigan. As a promising student in school, he had hopes of one day attending college. However, due to an abusive father, he found himself homeless and living on the streets at age 13. This unfortunate and dangerous turn of events caused his life to go in a very different direction. After a drug deal gone bad left two men fatally shot, Konrad decided to turn himself in to the police.

“A jail is a lockdown, but prison is a community,” says Charles, citing the work of famed prison reform advocate, penologist, and longtime warden of Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Lewis E. Lawes. Over the 40 years of his incarceration, Sing Sing was just one of the many institutions where Charles was held, in fact, he was there twice. After all of those years, he says that what he ultimately found was a sense of community.

After my incarceration at Lakeview Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility for non-violent offenders in Brocton, New York, I quickly realized I was living in constant fear of reincarceration. My parole officer had issued strict conditions such as travel limitations and unreasonable curfews, which prevented me from getting to work on time. There were incessant home visits, often at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. I was convinced my parole officer was scrutinizing my every move, just waiting for a reason to issue a technical parole violation.

Jimmy Pizarro did not let poor decisions he made during his youth define his future. Hear why Jimmy credits CEO with his success and why he thinks people should consider the program after they are released from incarceration.

Malik is a certified personal trainer and nutritionist. Originally from New York City, he currently resides in Oakland, California. From a young age, Malik spent time in and out of the justice system, including almost a decade in solitary confinement. Being an independent spirit and a go-getter, Malik forged ahead on his own after his release from incarceration. He encountered the barriers most returning citizens face, including: a lack of employment, lack of support, and a landscape that discriminates against Black men with past convictions.

Charandip is a testament to the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity and create economic independence for himself and his family. Born and raised in Queens, New York, Charandip got into legal trouble when he was very young; trouble that followed him into adulthood. He spent a total of six years in prison at different points in his life and came to CEO in 2020, after his last two-year sentence.

Voting became an important issue for me while I was incarcerated at a California State Prison. It became clear to me that the system, which chose to treat me inhumanely and like I was disposable, acquired the power to do so by the public vote. I learned felony disenfranchisement had been a form of voter suppression aimed at black and brown people for over 100 years. Today, I continuously pose the question to myself and others: “If my vote has no power, why have they made it so difficult for me and people like me to exercise our right to vote?”

I was released from prison in September 2020 after 22 long hard years of incarceration. I went into prison as a 19-year-old young man and returned to the community as a 41-year-old grown man. While in that mad house that is prison, which is full of anger, rage, and negativity, I emerged as a new person with new thinking. While in prison I used my time to engage in self-reflection, education, and hard work, with a focus on being a more productive human being. In that very dark and lonely jail cell, I discovered my untapped talents and purpose. I discovered that I wanted to write and be a public speaker. I want to share my story of struggle, oppression and redemption with people so the lessons of my life can inspire others to be their best selves.